Bridges?

[larry]

There seems to be a pretty wide variety of bridges on both home-brewed and commercial/pro lap steels. I'm wondering what some of you guys are using and why you might have chosen what you did?

--Looks as though Bill Asher uses a Les Paul kind of configuration on his Ben Harper model.

--Ryan over at rukavinaguitars.com has some really nifty looking original designs.

--Tom Pettingill recently posted a cool one over at the SGF.

--Of course Mr Boards' design is killer...

Thoughts?

-L

[larry]

Hard to believe there's no opinions on this...

[Bent]

Larry, you know me, I comment on everything. This wouldn't be an exception but the thing is I don't know beans about lap steel and I can't say that I have an opinion at all. I always like to learn though. what materials are most commonly used for bridges and nuts?
I think I have read that some nuts are made out of bone. Is this true?

[bobby burns]

I think for a lapsteel bridge something as adjustable as a Les Paul bridge is waaaay overkill, and may be a potential for some lost sustain. It's hard to beat something as simple as a piece of round brass stock set into a channel, or just screwed to the top, and holes for mounting the strings through the body.

[JW Adams]

hear are some simple bridges that work the one on the left is Telecaster with brass bar, the right is aluminum with brass bar. You could also do it in your choice of wood, it is done on a router table.

phpylZt15AM.jpg (29.55 KiB) Viewed 3240 times

[Eldon]

I've used aluminum angle and maple. Aluminum on my solid body and maple for my accoustic with a home spun dobro cone. Both are easy to work with. I tried Al on the accoustic but found that the highs were foar too pirecing for my ears. Even with the maple I ended up putting a facecloth between the spdier and the cone. I can post pics if you want.

[Don McGregor]

I am so far using Ryan Rukavina's bridges, and they are wonderful. My favorites are three, matched, nickel plated, brass, wrap around bridges Ryan made for me that are going on a triple neck project. I am also looking into designs I could do on my own. Until I can (probably never) spring for some sort of milling machine, I'll mostly be working with wooden bases.
Please post photos of your bridges.
I would also love to see photos and a description of how you "home spun" a dobro cone.
I'm still looking for the right pie pan.

[Eldon]

So much of what we do is coloured by what we like to hear. I prefer a sweet slinky sound. On my accordion setup I cut as much mid and treble as I can with full bass. Wood has that sweet slinky sound for me. It cuts down the sustain though. At some point I may try a wooden bridge on my lap. Some exotic hardwood from across the ocean.

[Eldon]

I turned a bowl shaped form for the cone on my wood lath, mounted a piece of aluminum roof flashing onto the "outside rim" of it and slowly pushed the flashing into the middle. It bunched up a bit in a couple of places but all in all it works as well as I want it to.
I used the spokes from a 10 inch cast aluminum pully for the spider and a maple bridge.
I recall taking some photos of a prototype. If I can't find them I'll post a cad drawing of the process.

[Allan]

The more close coupled the bridge is with the vibrating body of the instrument the better the bridge is. Close coupling, at a basic level, requires that there be as few material interfaces as possible in the chain. This is because each interface creates a standing wave situation with the involved out of phase reflections which result in an overall reduction in amplitude.

Most of what is known on this subject is empirical data as the subject is of enormous proportion with each and every considered aspect reacting with all of the others. The above paragraph, for example, assumes a single, simple wave form. Once we include complex wave forms and multiple frequencies going on at the same time the whole thing becomes of huge proportion.

However, since we do have years of empirical data to call on we can generally get by with a few basic rules. The best way to use this type of data is to do it backwards. In other words, what do we know DOESN'T work. As an extreme and silly example we know that a rubber bridge wouldn't work. By extension we also know that a sheet of rubber between the bridge and the body of the instrument would attenuate the vibration to a greater or lesser degree. Take this knowledge a step further and we see that using stuff like contact cement as part of attaching the bridge on a musical instrument is not a good idea. (it's a thin rubber sheet)

I think that the best bridge would be one that grew out of the body of the guitar and somehow evolved from being wood to being metal in the process. Now, that is obviously a fantasy. Possibly the best compromise is to make a medium weight bridge and attach it as firmly as possible to the body.

Empiricism tells us that the pressed metal, large area, of a Tele bridge works well. So does the small area, deeply inserted ferrules as used in a Gibson LP. It seems to be that intimate contact between the wood and the metal is key.

A purely personal view is that 'string through body' mounting adds nothing to the sound of a guitar. I believe that the short length of string, which includes the part twisted around the ball end, has such 'reluctance' to vibration that it adds little or nothing to the sound.

The real beauty of using empirical data is that it has been developed over the years and, as an evolutionary process, the appearance that has evolved as 'looking right', generally is right. In other words, stick with the convention and keep it as simple as possible and it will probably be just fine.

However, it is good to experiment! That is where the empiric knowledge came from in the first place.


Comments are more than welcome, I am no expert, just someone who has played around with this stuff for a while.

Regards, Allan.....